In 1927, 1928, and 1931, three historic crossings of thePacific took place that underscored howthe world wasshrinking—and
one trans-Pacific event took place in1 927 that aviators might justas soon have wanted to
forget. The door to the Pacific was opened with the flightof U.S. ArmyAir Corps
officers Lester J. Maitland andAlbert F. Hegenberger, in a Fokker
Trimotor called the 'Bird of
Paradise' (a virtual carbon copy of Byrd’s plane.the America ), from San
Francisco toHonolulu, Hawaii.

Unlike Bert Hinkler during his flight to Australia,
Maitland and Hegenberger could not put downalongthe way and had no
landmarks to guide them along the
twenty-four-hundred miles (3,86
1.3km) of featurelessocean. The
successful flight was a tribute to the pilotingskills of Maitland, the
navigating skills of Hegenberger,and the reliability of the Whirlwind engines and theFokkeraircraft.That same year; James P. Dole, president of theHawaiian Pineapple Company, issueda challenge offering prizes to the first two fliers to cross the Pacific fromCalifornia to Hawaii
non-stop. He intended to encouragea trans-Pacific flight as a prelude to eventual air
transportation between Hawaii and the mainland.

Dole, amember of the National Aeronautic Association, believedthat the flight was well withinthe capabilities of the competitors for the Orteig prize, who had to fly a thirty-six-hundred-milecourse. He hoped Lindbergh and Chamberlin would be induced into competing, butneithershowed any interest. The authority that certifiedthe race was appointed by the promoters, andtherein lay the problem. Entrants with virtually no chance of makingthe flight were allowed inand, in Dole’s words, the contest. dubbed the Dole Derby, became a free-for-all.

The Dole Derbv was won
by stunt pilot Art Goebel,flying a Travel Air called the
Woolaroc secondplacewas taken Mart in Jensen, flying a Breese monoplane,
the Aloha. But during the course of the race, four planeswere lost and ten people died, including the only
woman
entrant. MildredDoran (known as the “FlyingSchoolmarm” ), and the flying team of Scott and Frost
(flying a prototype of the new Vega, the Golden Eagle). A
number of sponsors of other races withdrew their support and
the ban on uncertified transoceanic flights that was
officially placed on the Atlantic was unofficially extended
to the Pacific.

The Fokker Trimotor Bird ofParadise in which Lieutenants Lester
Maitland and Albert Hegenberger made thefirst flight across the
Pacific—fromOakland, California,
to Honolulu, Hawaii.
The twenty-four hundred miles
represented the longest
all-water flight madeto that
time.

Into this dour environment stepped
Charles Kingsford-Smith. “Smithy,” as he was known, was
precisely the wrong man to place in charge of an attempt to
cross the Pacific. An average flier during the war,
afterward Smithy demonstrated himself to be a reckless,
hard-drinking, irresponsible thrill-seeker who had caused
many accidents and injuries in the aftermath of his
barnstorming stunts.

In connection with the Dole Derby
(which he passed up because it seemed foolhardy, even to
him), it was unlikely that anyone would sponsor him or
certify any aircraft in which he wanted to attempt a Pacific
crossing. In spite of all this, as a result of patience,
careful planning, and a measure of luck he found himself in
1928 in possession of the Fokker Trimotor, now called the
Southern Cross, that Sir Hubert Wilkins had flown in the
Arctic. He also had a political sponsor—the Premier of New
South Wales, who was coming up for re-election—and a new
image—the result of a highly publicised record-setting
flight around the perimeter of Australia that gave
Kingsford-Smith and his partners, Charles Ulm and Keith
Anderson, an air of respectability.

Smithy and the Southern Cross which he used to call
'my old bus.'

The Fokker trimotor Southern Cross flies past Mt
Taranaki on arrival in New Zealand in 1933

On May 31, 1928, the Southern Cross took
off from San Francisco for Hawaii and then went on to
Brisbane, a total of 7,316 miles. The Fokker F-VIIB was
tested on the flight by stormy weather and broken
navigational equipment, and several times, Smithy reported,
the aircraft came close to going down. But the crew of four
made it, and Kingsford-Smith’s past indiscretions were all
forgotten as he became Australia’s greatest hero (of the
day, at least). During the next five years, Smithy conducted
a number of pioneering flights, including a record-setting
solo flight from London to Australia in 1930, and a
Brisbane-to-San Francisco crossing of the Pacific (a more
difficult flight than flying the same route westward) in
1934.

Smithy and his co-pilot, Tom Pethybridge, beside the
Lockheed Altair Lady Southern Cross in which they
disappeared off the Burma coast in 1935

When Smithy set out from Lympne in Kent in November 1935
with his co-pilot, Tommy Pethybridge, to attempt to break
the 71-hour England-Melbourne record (set the previous year
by Charles Scott and Tom Campbell Black) he was ill. It was
to have been his last record bid. It became his last flight.
The Lockheed Altair Lady Southern Cross, pausing to refuel
only at Athens and Baghdad, made a swift flight to India. At
dusk on 7 November Smithy and Pethybridge took off from
Allahabad to fly non-stop through the night to Singapore.
They were seen to pass over Calcutta, Akyab and Rangoon –
which they over flew at 1.30 am.

Smithy and his co-pilot, Tom Pethybridge, beside the
Lockheed Altair Lady Southern Cross in which they
disappeared off the Burma coast in 1935.
Sometime around 2.50 that morning, 8 November, another
Australian pilot, Jimmy Melrose, who was heading south from
Rangoon in a much slower Percival Gull, was excited to see
the Altair overtake him over the Andaman Sea. On arrival in
Singapore later that day Melrose was surprised to learn that
the Lady Southern Cross had not arrived.

Despite a huge search of the entire Rangoon-Singapore route
by squadrons of RAF aircraft no trace of the Altair was
found for 18 months. In May 1937 its starboard undercarriage
leg, with still inflated tyre, was picked up by Burmese
fishermen on the rocky shore of Aye Island off the south
coast of Burma, about 140 miles south-east of Rangoon.

The starboard undercarriage leg of the Lady Southern Cross
found in 1937 on an island 140 miles south-east of Rangoon.

The theory grew that Smithy had flown into the 460-foot top
of the jungle-covered island and the aircraft had plunged
into the sea, the wheel breaking off and floating ashore.
However, if Melrose had genuinely seen the Altair overtake
him - they were the only two aircraft in Burma airspace that
night - then Smithy would have crashed at least 100 miles
south of Aye, and the wheel have drifted north.

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